Social innovation requires an enabling ecosystem, and one of the key players in that ecosystem is the philanthropic sector. Innovative philanthropists can help empower individual organizations to take risks while fostering collective impact in the process. With their faith under attack, one group of American Muslims and their allies are organizing to support Muslim change-makers who are creating solutions in their communities. In the process, they're reshaping perceptions of Islam in America. Read about Pillars Fund and their new approach to faith-based philanthropy in this article from Buzzfeed.
“In Illinois, a mother’s heartache over her daughter’s autism led to a nonprofit that helps Muslims with disabilities. Out of Michigan, an activist network pushes Muslims across the nation to address racial injustices. And in California, a Muslim civic institute has trained more than 100 rising leaders.
Those three projects emerged in recent years as part of a boom in Muslim-led nonprofit work that counters ideas of Islam as foreign and dangerous. And all of them are connected by an invisible thread: Pillars Fund.”